It Takes a Village
by RenaRoo
Summary: They are a small public school, they're not equipped for Junior's peculiar needs as an incoming student. And, even more so, they're unprepared for the full extent of Junior's family shenanigans.


ashleystlawrence prompted: I wish you would write a Fan fic were all the Reds and Blues show up for a parent teacher conference for Junior

I had a lot of fun with this story, arguably entirely too much fun which is part of why it took me entirely too long to knock it out. But I'm hoping everyone can join me in some soft fluff compared to… pretty much everything else I've been writing lately haha

Red vs Blue and related properties © Rooster Teeth  
story © RenaRoo

 **It Takes a Village**

When news broke about her new student enrolling, the entire school staff was pulled into a meeting to reviews the _dos_ and _don'ts_ of handling the new student, the precarious situation it placed their seemingly normal public school as far as inter-species relations were concerned, how to communicate during the interim of time as they waited for an official interpreter, and, of course, how not to stare at a fifth grader that was upwards of six feet, covered in scales, and had four mouths full of teeth.

Considering she had the child for both homeroom _and_ language arts, she knew she was about to see a lot of this.

On the first day of the spring semester, as the students came rolling in – some looking expectant and worried from no doubt being a part of the PTA moms' homes who had ben the first to rise up and question the staff admitting an extraterrestrial child – Lavernius Tucker strolled in with his son.

He preformed a routine that, as an elementary school teacher, she had seen a hundred times before. Leading his son in by the hand, talking loudly in reassuring tones, making jokes that his son didn't laugh at or even acknowledge, double checking the lunch box he packed – it was all so normal and natural to see on a parent that the teacher could _almost_ imagine that the giant Sangheili standing in her room wasn't the child in question.

And as the day ended, with little to no disturbances, she saw the same proud father in a bright aqua shirt and faded jeans standing in wait at the front of the line of parents to pick up his son after school. And knowing how kindergarten parents were, she could only assume Mister Tucker had been waiting for at least a half an hour before the bell ever rang.

Unlike most fifth grade parents, Mister Tucker kept this routine up every day of the first week, and every day of the second week of classes.

His devotion was something that immediately brought whispers up among the faculty and among the concerned PTA moms.

While Junior sat quietly in class and mostly seemed concerned with doodling his instructional hours away, never bringing much attention to himself, the adults around seemed invested in figuring out how a single father like Lavernius Tucker – let alone the single father of _a giant alien child –_ managed the time to be such an overbearing father who had personalized meals packed for his son daily and had time to spare to bring and pick-up his child.

There were rumors of some sort of giant settlement between his squad in the UNSC, more that perhaps it came from the concerned alien ambassadors who frequently called and checked in with the school's treatment of Junior.

The homeroom teacher was never really sure. She was just impressed with Mister Tucker.

Until Mister Tucker was caught outside the faculty bathroom claiming to have been lost as he waited on certain homeroom teachers to come out so he could ask for a number he never got.

Then she wasn't impressed with him outside of his fathering skills at all.

* * *

Whether the administration wanted to admit it or not, they took the first brawl incited by Junior as an expected outcome.

He was, after all, an Elite – Sangheili – and there were certain expectations they had warned the faculty about when it came to having him in school, for better or worse.

It painted every way they treated the fifth grader.

The only people who didn't seem prepared to hear that there was a fight broken out with the boys on the playground and Junior was his family – it always _was_ that way.

She had been warned by the secretary that when they called, Junior's family was displeased and on their way wanting an immediate meeting with her. What she _wasn't_ expecting was the red haired woman with fierce green eyes and the look that could kill someone literally stomping toward the office as she made her own way there from the classroom.

"You the teacher?" she demanded ferociously. "What happened? How'd he get hurt?"

"He's… not hurt," the teacher clarified, wondering how a parent could be so completely blind to reality. "I am the teacher. Junior's fine. He actually threw two students across the playground into the sandbox."

The woman blinked. "That's not like him. What's his side of the story?"

Shaking her head, the teacher looked at the woman curiously. "I'm… sorry. Who are you? Are you Misses Tucker–"

Almost immediately, the woman looked like she was about to be sick. "Oh, _god_ no. I'm… I'm Carolina. I'm here for Junior."

The woman pulled up her palm pad and typed in Carolina. Sure enough, she was listed as a direct contact for Tucker Junior. The teacher looked at her again.

"We don't know Junior's side of the story yet," she admitted to Carolina. "That is at least part of the reason we were calling–"

"Why don't you know his side yet? You haven't even asked him?" Carolina demanded. "That's highly irresponsible. Junior is a sweet, sweet kid and he's probably just worried about those other boys–"

"Well, we don't quite have an interpreter for him yet and it's been difficult to hear his side," the teacher said.

Immediately, Carolina's eyes narrowed nearly into slits. "Tell you what," she said as she gritted her teeth. "I'll take our boy home, and your school system can get its act together. Because I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that you incompetent assholes lead to this happening out of _miscommunication_ more than anything else."

The teacher sputtered but Carolina was already turned around and storming back toward the main office, shoulders shaking with anger.

"I _told_ him that public school was a stupid idea. I _told_ him. Goddammit. I went to boarding school for my whole goddamn life _I turned out just fine!"_

* * *

After a while, Junior appeared more withdrawn from the rest of his class and, especially, from the faculty. Though there was an infuriating number of times where she would catch the alien child visibly rolling his eyes at them all before doodling in the margins of his finished assignments.

Which made it all the clearer that something was _up_ when he stayed right on top of her the entire morning.

Without a hired translator the _blarghs_ and _honks_ and general murmuring chirps of the child made positively no sense to her, and she was left only to patience when dealing with it all. Until lunch came and it became strikingly apparent that the colorful cooler that Junior usually utilized as a lunchbox was nowhere to be found.

Surprised that the doting father had _not_ already been b, the teacher took Junior to the office herself and watched as he made his phone call, presumably home.

What was so striking to her, really, was how average of a situation it seemed externally. A child making a call home, waiting for a parent. It was as if the alien element wasn't a factor at all.

Which was where the normal comparisons ended all together because the man who entered the office with Junior's sticker covered cooler, all dressed in flamboyant pink and with a face half pockmarked with scars, was most certainly _not_ anyone the teacher had met regarding Junior before.

The man wore expensive clothes and a bright smile as he called out "Junior!"

Her student almost immediately leaped at the opportunity to give the man a receptive hug before, in one motion, breaking said hug, grabbing the cooler, and beginning to consume its full contents as he turned away from them.

"Yikes, kiddo!" the man chuckled. He then looked curiously to the nearest clock and clicked his tongue at the time. "Aw, your lunch is almost over! Why didn't you call me sooner?"

He then turned and watched Junior as the alien child paused between bites to give a quick string of honks, growls, and whining _blarghs_ to the man.

She looked on in amazement as understanding washed over the pink dressed man's eyes and he nodded to Junior.

The man looked to the teacher and held out his hand. "Hey. I'm Franklin Donut. Are you Junior's teacher?" he asked lightly despite the seriousness in his gaze.

Offering her hand back, she nodded. "Yes. I'm Junior's homeroom teacher."

Donut nodded. "Yeah, okay. That's great! Nice to meet you. Ah, but Junior says he tried to ask to use the phone several times this morning so he could get a hold of me and… now he basically doesn't have lunch because _you_ didn't let him until now…"

Caught off guard, she blinked at him before withdrawing her hand. "Oh… I see. Well, obviously, Mister… _Donut–"_

 _"_ You can _just_ call me Donut. Everyone does."

"Alright, well, Sir, you see the problem is that our school is still locating a proper interpreter for Junior and have not had luck just yet–"

Donut's brows furrowed. "The school doesn't have someone on staff who's fluent in Sangheili? Even though you have a student who cannot communicate in English? Well, if that doesn't just blow."

She frowned at him. "Well, Sir, it's harder to locate than you might think–"

"Shoot, no it's not," he said with a dismissive wave. "I served as one back when Tucker an Junior were ambassadors and– you know what? I think, since this is the _school's_ fault here, you guys should just let Junior eat his lunch in peace here in the office while I go talk to the Prince-a-pal–" he winked and nudged Junior with his elbow, to which the eating alien slightly growled "–get it? Because a principal is your _pal!_ – and I'll take care of this whole interpreter thing before Tucker hears about it and throws himself a right ol' fit."

The teacher blanched. "Mister Donut–"

"Just Donut!" he reminded her as he walked toward the secretary. "We'll be seeing a lot of each other probably, so you better get used to saying it!

* * *

While the exuberance their interpreter, Mister Donut, presented every morning certainly was a distraction on many days, what _really_ served as a spot of irritation for the next week was her class being disrupted by a phone call from the office saying that she needed to send Junior down to be signed out early every day half an hour before the bell.

Once the next week began and the predictable call rang, she left her class with Junior and put the smiling Donut momentarily in charge.

 _Surely,_ she thought, _that_ time it was Mister Tucker himself and nearly a month's worth of outrage she had been building up toward him could at last be released.

Which made her disappointed as well as confused when she opened the office door and saw for herself that the tall, broad shouldered man waiting was most certainly _not_ Lavernius Tucker.

All the same, Junior honked cheerily and burst over to the man.

Even Junior's full tackle at the man's waist didn't manage to knock him over.

"Okay! Time to go!" the man shouted enthusiastically. "Doo dee do do do deet–"

Surprised, and more than a little frustrated at meeting an entirely new face, the teacher raised her hand and stopped the man in his steps.

Junior growled in protest.

"I'm sorry, Sir," she said testily, "but who _are_ you?"

The man blinked owlishly in surprised before pointing at his chest. "I'm Caboose." Then, almost immediately afterward, "I'm a friend!" tumbled out of his mouth.

Every alarm in her brain was ringing as she looked this Caboose up and down

Seeing she was not taking the answer at face value, he hastily added, "That's what Tucker told me to say. He said 'if they ask you who you are when you pick up Junior you say I'M A FRIEND!'" Caboose shouted loudly.

He shifted his weight again. "Yeah, but for the record I take friendship more seriously than Tucker. I would not call us friends like that so lightly. Sometimes I don't think he even means it."

Confused herself at that point, she turned and looked at the secretary who simply shrugged back.

She refocused on Caboose. "Mister Tucker _tells_ you to pick Junior up half an hour before school lets out every day?" she demanded.

"Oh, no," Caboose said casually. "But when we were all on Blue Team, Agent Washington always said showing up on time made us late! I'm a good soldier so I'm never late. Not like Tucker. Always late. And naked. Stupid late naked Tucker."

"Mister Caboose!" she snapped. "Do you realize that every time Junior leaves before the bell rings, it is a _tardy_ counted against his attendance record?"

Caboose gasped. "That is terrible! Why would someone do that to Crunchbite Junior?"

Junior rolled his eyes. "Blargh."

Turning his head, Caboose blinked at Junior. "You're _Tucker_ Junior? Oh that is much worse."

"Mister Caboose!" the teacher tried again.

"Present," he reported in, stiffening in his stance.

" _Please_ don't be _early_ picking up Junior anymore," she begged. "It's a disruption to his education as well as to the rest of my class."

"Oh, okay then," Caboose said with a shrug. He then stage whispered to Junior, "Psst. Your teacher likes for people to be late. No one tell Agent Washington."

* * *

The first day that Mister Donut cannot make it to school, Junior got into an all out brawl with the same group of boys.

While the other boys were worse for wear, Junior easily looked the part of the whipped pup while they waited in the guidance counselor's office for another intensive meeting.

At that point in her frustrating quest to understand the Tucker's set up, the teacher no longer knew if she wanted to see the actual Mister Tucker himself or if she would rather deal with the aggressive redhead again.

In the back of her mind she was fully aware that the rest of the cavalcade could have shown up for the meeting as well and it not be a surprise.

Still, she was not expecting for a much older gentleman with whitened hair and the rough, square features of an old jarhead to all but kick the office door down to join them.

"Sir, can I help you?" she demanded. "I'm afraid we are using this office for a parent-teacher conference."

"I'm Sarge, I know exactly what this is and I think it's hogwash!" he howled, storming in toward the first chair available next to Junior. He nodded to the alien, stopped by the chair, inspected it, then made a point of standing behind the chair with his hands firmly on its back but _not_ sitting down himself.

The teacher was ready to pull out her hair.

" _You_ are here for Junior?" she asked.

"Of course I am! I understand this is about a fight, so I came here," Sarge nodded.

Junior actually palmed his own face and let out a low whine.

"Yes, it's about a fight," the teacher answered. "This would be Junior's second."

The man named Sarge blinked once then looked to Junior. Then back. "Did he win?"

Sputtering, the teacher nearly rose out of her seat. "Sir, that is _not_ an appropriate response to this situation!"

Junior raised his head and gave one honk.

Sarge let out a loud woop and smacked the back of the chair. "Thattaboy," he chuckled. He then looked over to the teacher. "So what's the problem?"

"That he's _getting into fights in school,"_ she hissed at him.

"Huh, it _is?"_ Sarge asked before shrugging. He looked to Junior. "Start 'em _after_ school, kid. We can't always have someone to come over here and shoot the breeze with your teachers during the day! If they're gonna keep calling us in here even though you prove yourself to be the deserving champion, then they don't deserve have you as an entertaining pre-pro intergalactic UFC fighter."

The old man paused and looked seriously toward the teacher.

"Speaking of which, did you watch the match last night? I had no idea there were aliens with four arms and glass jaws! Hehe. Go humans."

Unable to process much more, the teacher put her head in her hands.

Perhaps she could get a hold of Mister Tucker through email.

* * *

After all of the frustrations in dealing with the Tucker family, she dropped it entirely. There were just some things, she supposed, that were not going to figured out by her or any of the staff.

And considering they could barely find an interpreter for an alien hybrid, it wasn't too much of a stretch to assume they didn't understand much _more_ of the situation as it stood, too.

At least, that was the attitude she adopted until it came that dreaded time of the semester again where her afternoons were split between gradework and after school duty.

She had a sign up sheet with every student signed up for after school on it and the small space where the parent or guardian had to sign for picking up the child.

It was a simple and mostly effective system until, to her horror, she saw that _Junior_ was among the names listed.

It took everything in her to not facepalm publicly at the realization.

As the time ticked down, she made an effort of deciding ahead of time to not question any of the faces that came up to sign Junior out, which just made it _that_ much harder when the two gentlemen who did were as uniquely featured as these men were.

The shorter man was thick with dark complexion and bristly hair, but patches of his skin were a pale white decorated in freckles – the kind that littered the skin of the taller, leaner man where cybernetics far more advanced than anything she had seen in their small town did not cover.

They honestly looked like a comedy duo, a Penn and Teller.

It was probably telling of her last several months that she began turning the page toward Junior's sign out sheet almost immediately at seeing them.

"Is there _any_ consistency in who deals with my student?" she asked seriously as they came up to her.

They looked at her with varying degrees of surprise, annoyance, and concern all at once and then looked to each other.

"Um, excuse me?" the tall one asked nervously, pulling at the neck of his shirt.

"Nothing," she sighed. "Are you here for Junior Tucker?" she asked as she handed over the clipboard.

"Yeah, we are," the tall one repeated before taking the sheet and beginning to sign it.

As if on cue, Junior waddled over and honked at them.

The shorter one shrugged. "What the hell you want from us? There was traffic. Your dad failed to mention _traffic."_

Horrified, the taller man elbowed him. "Grif! Language."

"Oh, shit, sorry," Grif said looking to the teacher like he was about to get detention.

The teacher stared back before accepting the clipboard. She looked at the sign out sheet's line for Junior and read the neat cursive signature of _Richard Simmons._ Which almost set her off on edge.

She looked at the man irritably. "You cannot use a joke name to sign out children from this school, Sir," she warned.

"It _is_ my name," Simmons groaned. "My parents had a terrible taste in workout instructors alright? And– oh. I bet Tucker put my name on the guardian list as _Dick."_

Grif snorted. "I would have."

"It's short for Richard," Simmons continued, turning an angry eye toward his partner.

"I _know_ what Dick is short for," the teacher sighed, rubbing her temples. "Please… just… you can leave."

"God, who would've thought Caboose would be right about something?" Grif asked as he took Junior's jacket and put it over the alien's shoulders. "This school _is_ fucking weird."

" _Language,_ Grif. Goddammit," Simmons hissed as they continued on their way out.

The second they were gone, the teacher caved and she grabbed for her tablet, hurriedly accessing Junior's student records just to see how many times she'd have to scroll to get to the bottom of his list of guardians.

* * *

The semester drawing to a close and exams quickly arriving, the school system finally found an adequate interpreter for Sangheili. According to Mister Donut it had come at a great time for him personally as he and some sort of doctor had been missing their daily wine and cheese hour as a result of his constant presence at school.

As an instructor with a somewhat innocent mind left, she prided herself on not gathering any sort of details on what _any_ of that had meant.

For an interpreter, the new assistant seemed rather shocked by his assignment overall and mostly stayed five feet from Junior as much as possible. His floundering honks and blarghs were usually met with disdain and correction to the point that he revealed he had mostly worked with the _written_ Sanghelios language and began resorting to typing out translations for Junior.

Her student, who for all his challenges had remained at the top of her classes, began to not turn in homework, though his exam grades remained relatively high.

With a very _specific_ email to Mister Tucker, the teacher hoped he would get the message that the meeting about his son's grades was really meant for _his_ attendance.

Which made her simply drop her forehead to her desk when a different man altogether with graying, spiky blonde hair walked on in.

"Really?" she asked.

He blinked at her and sat down. "Really what?"

"Nothing," She sighed, raising her head just enough to rub her temples. "And _you_ are…?"

"Washington," he replied.

His eyes never seemed to focus on her for long. They were glancing around the room, a small voice muttering under his breath as if he was counting something. His body was stiff as a board as he sat in front of her desk, but his legs were already pointed toward the door.

The man also spent a disproportionate amount of time staring at the smoke detector as if he was waiting for it to reveal to be something else.

"Mister Washington, is it safe to assume that I _won't_ be seeing Mister Tucker about this issue concerning _his_ son?" she asked, more haughtily than intended. But there was an anger that had been boiling for a while on the subject.

He turned and stared at her for the longest bit of time since he had entered the room.

"Tucker's busy trying to get everything set up around here," Wash explained stiffly. "We all are… having a difficult adjustment. And as supposedly good as the schools are around here, the job market for veterans leaves something to be desired."

Blinking, the teacher felt completely taken by surprise.

Washington's eyes only hardened as he stared back at her. "So, no, Miss. Until all of us get our affairs in order, Tucker doesn't have the most time to come in here every other day and deal with the fact that this school can't treat his son with the same level headedness and understanding that he's a _kid_ and the ridiculous number of things you try to call him in here for should be handled without constantly alerting his parent. Just like you would do any other kid."

"Junior presents a lot of, well, _unprecedented_ situations for our school," she said, searching desperately for the best response her mind could produce. "We want to ensure safety and see to it that he's given the best education afforded."

"And do you meet with other families on a near weekly basis?" he demanded. "I'm just curious. Because, to me, the best opportunities afforded to a student and the greatest way to assure that he is not put in a situation to receive different treatment from students is if the _faculty_ treats him the same as anyone else." His frown furthered. "Now what am I here for?"

"I'm afraid that since we got a new interpreter for Junior, his work ethic has slipped," she explained. "I do think that perhaps the interpreter's methods aren't the best and if that's the case, rather than penalize Junior's grades I would like to work with him."

Taking a breath, Washington pinched the bridge of his nose.

Swallowing tightly, the teacher tilted her head. "Sir?"

"You are a _school,"_ Wash said. "Of _course_ you should work with him if you understand what the problem probably is. See! This is exactly what I was talking about." He looked back up at her. "Would you have called in any other family if it was someone besides Junior?"

She remained quiet.

"Try handling _our_ kid the way you do every other family's kid," Wash ordered as he got to his feet. "He's ten years old. He likes basketball. He's _very_ loved. He has a fantastic support system at home. Take a special interest in him because he's a really cool kid. _Don't_ keep calling us in here as some sort of spectacle or because you don't want to acknowledge that you've not been handling these situations the way you would when it's other kids."

"Every call we make is due to an extenuating circumstance, Mister Washington," she defended.

He looked at her expectantly. "Oh? Did you call in the bullies' parents when Junior got into fights and explained they had been egging on a six foot Sangheili child?"

"That wasn't my call to make–"

"Have a good day, Miss," Washington snapped before walking out of the room.

* * *

After Agent Washington had more than made his point, she did take the time to reevaluate how she was handling the situation.

Like she had seen in the office so many months beforehand, a step back was all it took to see that Junior's doodling and sticker covered cooler was not at all different from her either children.

It never occurred to her before that she didn't call on Junior in class, and once she began – forcing the interpreter to step up his game on more than one occasion – the child's focus became more apparent.

By the time the semester break began, a plainly wrapped holiday gift was left on her desk with all the others, that one though was signed by _The Tucker Family + Friends._

And while she did not call for another unnecessary conference in all of that time, she planned from the start to call in Mister Tucker – hoping and praying it was the _real_ him that arrived that time – for a meeting.

She was so stunned when the actual Lavernius Tucker walked in through her doors that she almost didn't greet him.

"Hey, so… is everything cool with Li'l J-man?" he asked, a strangely tight expression of concern on his face. "He's actually kinda liking it here now and I know he got into some shit last semester but I hadn't heard anything–"

"Oh, Mister Tucker," the teacher said pleasantly. "I'm glad you could make it."

"Yeah, yeah. Single parent, shirking responsibilities off on all his friends, I get it–"

"No no no, you're misunderstanding, Mister Tucker," she said. "I called this meeting today because, well… I just wanted to let you know that Junior is doing well. His grades are actually top of his class and he's _very_ accomplished."

Tucker's face became slightly watery. "Yeah?"

"Our school's basketball team is already halfway through its season, but I heard your son used to play at his private school," the teacher continued, pulling out a paper from one of her various piles across the desk. "He wrote about it, did he show you?"

"Nah, he usually gets Simmons or Doc to check smart stuff – he's way above me," Tucker said, nearing the desk in tiny increments.

She held out the paper. "Would you like to see anyway?"

"Yeah," Tucker said, grabbing it. "Yeah, totally – wow. I don't even write that neat. I never saw the point with so many computer."

He read over it, eyes darting across every word, turning the page over and grinning at the doodles made in the margins illustrating Junior's elaborate tell of victory from the UNSC boarding school.

Tucker breathed and then turned back his attention to the teacher. "What about basketball? Junior said he didn't want to sign up this year so I guess we missed the deadline for it. I told him it was a good way to make friends but, well, he didn't exactly go for it…"

"Well, you're right, it's probably a touch late for the semester," she agreed before taking the offered report back. "But there are actually minor independent leagues around town and a YMCA where he could play. Get to know some of the other kids, and probably play next year if he's still interested."

Tucker's eyebrows raised, genuinely surprised. "Whoa. Really?"

"Yes, and there's football in the fall–"

"No football," Tucker said firmly. "He's too gentle for that. Plus let's just say I've seen way too many times what knocks to the heads do, helmet or no helmet." He made a pained expression. "Ugh. And getting him fitted four shoulder pads. Yeah, no thanks. Tucker men are basketball players."

She hummed slightly in agreement. "I believe you're right. Junior _might_ be too gentle for football. Like I said, he's a _fantastic_ kid. The school's better for having him."

"Yeah, no kidding," Tucker said, he took a deep breath. "It's just so hard for him being so different… Y'know, it really means a lot that one of the teachers gets that and lets him be a kid. So… thank you."

"You're welcome, Mister Tucker," she replied, feeling rather moved.

Tucker paused and tapped his finger against the desk.

"So… would you happen to be… like, single or something maybe?" he asked.

"Goodbye, Mister Tucker."

"Yeah, yeah," he laughed as he walked out.


End file.
